Contract
by DamnedBeret
Summary: This is a FE: Warriors plot bunny I have for a long time. And no, before you ask, I won't do any pairing.


**_The Aytolisian Camp near Ebony Volcano..._**

* * *

New hero.

It's always something great when the Aytolisian Army and it's allies have another hero from another world. The crown prince and princess always need more and more friends and comrades to offset the _overwhelmingly_ high stakes against them (to elaborate: an army of monsters led by a dragon, a former allied nation turn turncoat, and a cult of magical dragon-sized undead WMD worshipers). So far, the understaffed but extremely skilled Ylissean Shepherds had agreed to help them, alongside with a bunch of others like Celica and Lyndis, and as of right now, they are going to recruit the new heroes of the world of Fates.

The plan is simple: split up to two camps, and basically try to ask the royals of the kingdoms (now identified as Hoshido and Nohr) to help them. Sound easy? Of course, if they did their homework a bit earlier, they would realize that trying to band said kingdoms naturally will only lead to open conflict and resentment, so unless they find a bridge to make them make amends (like a certain white haired half-dragon princess with another stick of destiny and a blue haired singer which is conveniently missing and possibly in enemy hands), they have to find a third party to point at (which is conveniently the aforementioned army of darkness and all that is evil). However, just for the sake of unintentional drama and other stuff, the army is currently blissfully unaware of the rivalry of the possible new allies.

And this new hero isn't going to singlehandedly save anyone around. At best, this new OC will create and solve many problems. And at the very worst, the new ally is just going to become a stereotypical Gary Stu that nobody wants to read about.

* * *

Celica awakes from a really specific nightmare.

"Oh, by Mila... not this again..."

A really close and specific nightmare.

Another nightmare about that fight...

About that fight with Alm and Emperor Rudolf...

...

She really has nothing to say about it.

She remembers the day before that nightmare appeared in her life. Just another day of praying, helping refugees in the mainland, and the occasional fending against pirates in the seas who are dumb enough to attack the monastery. And just another day of searching clues about what happened to the Earth Mother's apparent... _laziness_, let's just call it like that.

However, that dream was the last straw. The moment she saw Alm nearly killed by the Rigelian Emperor, she knew she had to leave. She knew that she need to see him - and Mila - to make sure that they are safe and to prevent them to reenact her dream.

Well, she failed both of that: Mila and Alm is now on Rigel, one is being held captive by the Duma Faithful, and the other is waging a war against the kingdom, because he also believed that the Emperor had a hand on the invasion of Zofia.

But during her quest to pass the border, she was engulfed by a pillar of light, and then ended up in a war that isn't hers - but she is sure that she will help her new allies end it. Because her allies aren't creatures from the depths of the hells. And the fact that her friends are very friendly toward her and each other. All are also good hearted, even Tharja - her obsession toward that white-haired tactician is quite well known, but she is also caring toward many around her, in her only strange ways, of course.

And some men look gorgeous, and some women look cute, like Anna the trader.

But back to reality. Trying to return to sleep is now impossible. Her nightmare is too horrifying to recover, and the sky is already blue, so she might as well wake up to help the people around.

The army is now camping near a village. According to the local people, this settlement is famous for the founding of the brimstone trading, which didn't end well for them. But still, they continued to use brimstone for many things, like lamps and some medicine. The villagers are mostly friendly but nervous and suspicious, but given that there's an army right outside their doorstep, alongside with the royalty around, plus sightings of foreign armies clashing around here and the neighboring kingdom's _aggressive stand_ (read: full frontal war declaration), among a myriad of other _insignificant things _(like, say, monsters), she thinks they are justified to do so, and, in some ways, they are right.

But her observation of her new allies in this war shows that they will never do such dishonorable things, especially towards hardworking, innocent people that _objectively_ doesn't deserve a war against the dragon of destruction and its' pawns.

And so she stands up, get dressed, use some perfume and grab her items, to be of help to anyone who needs it.

"Hi, Celica." She turns to the source of the voice and see Lianna, the princess of Aytolis and one of the twins who is leading the army. "What're you doing?"

Celica also looks at her and is shocked at her appearance. She looks horrible! She looks like she was in a brawl in a volcano, as her clothes has black char, burnt pieces and she herself has some bruises. She also sports a sprinked ankle, if she is not mistaken.

Her concern is a bit too visible, as Lianna quickly finds out. "Uh, Celica, is something wrong?"

"What happened to you?" Celica worriedly asks.

"Uh, it was nothing. I'm fine, see?" She then tries to demonstrate that she is, indeed, fine, but fails anyway, due to the screwed ankle. "Ouch!"

"No, you're not. Your clothes are burnt, you have a strained ankle, and you have bruises on yourself! Please, sit down, let me heal you."

"No, I'm seriously fine, Celica. No need to worry!"

"It's not fine when you are clearly wounded. Just relax, okay? Let me heal you."

Lianna finally caves, and then sit down on a nearby crate. "Okay, you win."

The redhead smiles. "It'll take a few seconds only. Don't worry."

She then feels a warmth and relaxing sensation around her, as Celica's magic begin to mend her wounds and fix her ankle, and, indeed, just a few seconds, she feels like she's good as new again.

She feels embarrassed for making such a fuss over her wounds.

"There, all better now. See, it isn't hard, right?"

"Yeah it is. I'm sorry for making troubles to you."

"No, no, no. It's fine, I don't mind it at all." Celica stops for a moment, then asks: "What happened to you?"

The Aytolisian princess now looks more embarrassed. "Well, long story short, someone attacked me and Cordelia when I was guarding."

Celica gasps. "What?!"

"No, no, it's fine. It was just a misunderstanding, we sorted through it peacefully. He even agreed to join us. Turns out, he's also another hero from another world, and he's just confused. I helped him out and now he's willing to introduce himself in the main camp. I was about to call everyone around but, well..."

"Oh..." Celica now understand why Lianna called her in the first place. "Let me help you, then. You need to rest to fully heal yourself."

"Please, I'm fine now, really." The blonde then slightly wince when she tries to move. Indeed, she is fine, but Celica needs to be sure.

"No, stay here. I'll help. Please."

Lianna sighs again. "Okay, thanks. I'll be heading back to the main camp. See you guys there."

* * *

And now, they also have a new recruit.

"Everyone, I would like to introduce a new hero to help us on our quest." The princess, Lianna, smiles upon the rounded heroes, royals and friends. To her left, she sess Lissa, the energetic and playful young Ylissean princess, alongside with her future son, Owain, the overdramatic young boy who seems to try to hide some of his past. Cordelia is nowhere to be found, she is possibly training and doing laundry (despite many others' attempts to force her to rest), but Olivia is here, curious of the new hero. Darios is here, sitting with Celica, who, like the shrinking dancer, is wondering who this new hero is. However, since he is also the person who attacked Lianna, even because of misunderstanding, so she is a bit more cautios.

And right next to Lianna is a man. He looks a bit older than most, with the stand and the face of a veteran of an unknown war, and with the gear to match. However, his armor seems to be made of extremely thick cloth, with strange horizontal lines for what might looks like decoration, and pouches that looks too small to carry anything more than vulneraries. His armor also only cover his chest and a part of his stomach, which may emphasizes more movement.

But what makes him stand out is his visible personality.

"Hero's too much of a stretch, don't you think? I'm not a hero, just a survivor." He just says back at her.

"Oh, um... Would you like to introduce yourself, sir..." Lianna asks him. When Celica looks at her, she seem part nervous, and part,,, fear?

"Just call me Wildfire. No need for my real name." He chuckles a bit. "Yeah, it sounds retarded, but I don't trust any stranger who tried to kill me _just a few hours before_."

Lianna visibly shrinks. All of the heroes gathered feel sorry for her.

Poor girl.

"...A-And, do you want to add a few things about yourself, like where you come from, and about you?"

"Oh, yeah, I do." He then looks directly into the crowd. "Well. this is a bit awkward thing to say, but..." He breathes. His voice becomes hard as steel. "I'm here to do a job, and to do that job efficiently, and that's it. If anyone here thinks that I'm here to make friends, then I got a warning for you: _stay away_."

This time, the more shy and insecure members of the group (case in point: Olivia) begin to step a bit back from his harsh and uncompromising tone.

"Most people who personally know me had died, by my enemies or by myself, and mostly the latter. So don't make yourself top of my list."

He then proceeds to leave the camp, but not without leaving a "Good day" to the rest of the group.

Celica can see that his overall demeanor seems to be a bit closed off and much more hostile than the people around her. Whereas her friends are friendly, casual, cordial and open, he seems to be like the type that act cold, detached and more professional than everyone. That's very worrisome, because their friendship and bond with each and every one of them is always the main strength of this army. Unity had saved every single one of them, and she is afraid that he would be the one that drive the wedge against the army.

She hopes for the goddess that he has a kind hearted soul underneath that cold exterior.

And apparently, the heroes' thoughts of the new ally is a bit diverse. Some, like her and Lianna, still believe that he must has a good side, while others, like Darios, is sure that they would be better off away from him, because he might divide all of them into pieces.

She needs to know more about him.

* * *

And so, against her better judgements, she finds him.

He is carrying crates of somethings, which looks not just heavy, but also dangerous, according to his slow and careful movement.

So Celica walks to the man and asks: "May I help you?"

He, for a moment, looks surprised, but just like that, his face changes into stoic, and she has a reply. "No."

"Please, I insist. I want to help you."

"Then step aside. I got this."

She stops for a moment. "You know, if you let me help you, it would be easier for all of us."

"No, I'm trying to say that this is _high explosives._" He stresses the last two words to her. "You don't know how to handle this, you'll just gonna make things worse. Or you might just take this and do whatever you want with this, up to and including accidentally killing yourself. So stay away, I got this."

She is a bit shocked at his assumption of her. She is not a child! If she knows what's inside of the box, she would naturally be much, _much_ more careful with it, but the fact that he consider her to be irresponsible...

No, no, he's right (in a given definition of right.) She didn't know what's in that box, and she doesn't know how it blows up. However, he still doesn't trust her. She must try harder.

"Well, I'm sorry, but do you still want help? Is there any other box that you need to carry back to your tent?"

"A lot, but I can do this by myself." He walks away from her. "Thanks for the offer, though."

And she continues to watch him going away. But when she looks down, she sees a black rectangular object. She doesn't know what it is, but she thinks it is Wildfire's.

"Hey Wildfire! Is this yours?"

He looks back, and his face turns into shock. He quickly put his boxes down on the ground and then checks his pants pocket. "Holy fuck, how did I drop it?!"

She steps back from his crude language.

"Um, thank you, ma'am, for giving me my stuff." He takes the object and put it back where it was, then says again to her. "Really now, thank you. I still can take all of this by myself."

"Are you sure?" She presses. "I think you're having a hard time not accepting help from others."

"Well, back in where and when I came from, not a lot of people are willing to do it. And if they do, it's for their own goals."

"But this isn't your home world. This is Aytolis, and you can assure that the people here are quite different from where you were."

"You're an Aytolisian then?"

"I'm not, but I was raised as a priestess of the goddess Mila." Surprisingly, he still stand there, listening to her. She thought he is the kind of person who might leave any situation if he has a chance. "She, along with her brother, Duma, formed the continent of Valentia, but they split the continent into two kingdoms, the Rigelian Empire, protected by Duma, and my home, the Kingdom of Zofia, protected by Mila."

"I have a sneaking suspicion that Mila is more or less a powerful dictator."

"No, the people of Zofia call her the Earth Mother, because she protects and blesses the land, and always want us to live in a life without struggle, like a mother."

He is quiet for a moment. "...yeah, she sounds like a dictator to me." He sighs. "But I'll give the benefit of a doubt here. Supposed she's actually a goddess, you guys must be happy to have her guidance, unlike ours..." She catches the last part, and now she's curious.

"So what's your god? Do you believe in one?" She's interested in hearing anything new, and now especially about his deity. Is his god a dragon? Is his god like Mila, who always bless for humanity as a whole with her powers, or like Duma, who considers hardships build a stronger humanity?

"Not actually. The god, or gods in some cases, in my home is worshiped by many religion, and with many names, but personally, if he seriously exists, he's a lazy asshole."

She is shocked at his statements. Is he talking about a god that cares little to his subjects?

"What are you saying?"

He shrugs. "The bible says he either created my world and humanity in a week, or he created the templates of humanity in his garden, which went badly, and that's probably the only significant things he did in my world, and he just let us do whatever we want then, with promises of going to heaven if you are good, or going to hell if you can't ask forgiveness from him before you die. But mankind had been around for hundred thousands of years. And god seems to be too bored to watch us killing each other out of spite during those years."

"...oh." She never expects this. Mila is always around her temple, and always willing to talk to anyone who enters her temple. In fact, speaking to her was one of her goals of her quest. She also had met many priestess and priest who had served personally with the Earth Mother.

But he's not done yet.

"You wanna know the kicker? Not a lot of people believe in him, since we have absolutely no first hand experiences of seeing the man himself, and the closest thing we get about him is the bible, which went through multiple editions, been retold orally for hundreds of years and reinterpreted by many authors, including radicals, fundamentalists and extremists, so you have to understand it's not reliable. Besides, humans have an instinctive crave for understanding the unknown, and most of them says that god doesn't exist, that we evolved from the monkeys and apes, and believe it or not, they actually have the closest thing to a solid proof for the latter part."

And now she's more surprised. There's no deity figure in his world? How does his world survive and flourish?

"But then... do you believe in your god?"

His jovial face, appeared when he starts talking with her, disappears immediately. "God doesn't come for me when I needed him the most. God doesn't come for my friends when they are dying in foreign lands. So I'm pretty sure that god doesn't give a shit about us for a long time ago."

Another silence.

"You know, it's funny, 'cause I said I don't want to be anyone's friend. Yet you tried your best to be one, and I think you almost succeeded." And once again, he returns to seriousness. "But we won't be here for long. As I said, I'm a survivor, not a hero like everyone else, and you'll see why."

"No, you're not just a survivor, whatever that means." She comforts him. "You're a hero like us, that's why you're here, to save this world from evil."

He scoffs. "There's many ways to defeat evil, up to and including evil itself."

He then picks up the crates. "Thanks for the talk, anyway." And then he walks away.

She watches him leaves her vision. While the information about his world, and himself, is troubling, there's one thing in her mind.

She cracked him.

She almost became his friend.

She will help him to take the light side. Then all of them can defeat the evil, and they will all go home.

Inwardly, she smiles, and then leaves to help others.

* * *

"Fucking hell, what's wrong with her?"

As soon as Wildfire put the crate to where it should be, he immediately sit on the makeshift bed.

He looks at the assorted boxes and crates. All are green, organized and marked, and the **_HIGH EXPLOSIVES_** boxes are clearly separated and have a warning sign, and he's thinking about rigging some sort of blast resistance layer, but nobody in this place know how to make one, including him, so that idea is scratched out, and he's going to sleep with lots of_ unprotected explosive ordinances_ (read: certain death by fire, fury, shockwaves and shrapnel from just about a feet away) that is only separated from him by _flimsy wooden or metal plates, _and maybe fabric.

Speaking about the warning sign, he doesn't know if they can read his handwriting.

Welp, time to sign his will.

Anyway, he has enough supplies to last for a few months, if he decides to be wasteful. Not counting food and water, of course.

...seriously, how did the Aytolisians get these? And how did they forget that they have the stuff in the first place? Even better, how did they manage to _not_ blow themselves up to oblivion yet?

Anyway, the main thing is he got the stuff, and he's still in one piece.

"Dunno how would the others think about this..."

Stuck in a medieval world for being a hero, and also expected to defeat the Great Evil to get back home...

The rest of the gang back home would laugh until their livers come out. They might say that if that happens, they are destined to kill themselves. Or their mission will involves torturing said Big Bad until they die of internal blood lost. Or anything else that involves their flexible _mindsets_.

Honestly, he thought that he would have to work with cutthroats and bandits (especially when considering that he's apparently qualified to be a hero of this land), not snotty royals, children in their periods, insecure strippers, fundamentalists and people with heroic complexes.

Really, the stuff of legends.

But still, if he has to survive, he has to rely on the same bunch of asswipes that may or may not stab him in the back because of their aforementioned heroic complexes makes them incapable of fighting with a bastard like him or their ulterior moves just crossed his instinctive fight for survival. Maybe both.

He should keep his distance to avoid conflict or to start making allies so when shit hit the fan, he has backup, but they can also backstab him. That redheaded priestess seems to be a good woman to start, but he's in no mood for using people like that, and he's not a manipulative asshole. Also, refer to said point.

He's in a large unknown here. No one to count on but himself, and he has a basic grasp of how things work in this continent. And his paranoia is going haywire.

...fuck, that bitch is going to kill him. She's trying to pry him out so she can get information out of him-

Wait, wait, wait. Back up. Back the _hell_ up. Paranoia acting up again.

So, he's back in square one.

What should he do? He got at least 2 options: stay emo or be _social._ Well, he has already said to the assembled heroes to fuck off of his sight, so he can't act friendly towards them (that should be easy).

But the underworld should be fair game.

But how should he approach them? He has no cocaine on his body, and his current allegiance with the supposed good guys might scare them off. That's gonna be tricky, considering he's no longer a survivor (in title only) but a hero, but he might manage.

That is, if they even exist in the first place.

And if it doesn't exist, he's _fucked_.

...

Well, if things goes of the rocker...

He looks at his rifle. He had ordered it for a long time ago, and just a night before his teleportation to his place, he had to pay through the nose for it, especially while in a warzone.

The _Heckler & Koch_ logo is printed at it's mag well. The familiar shape of the gun reminded him of his time at the army, back when he was in need of direction.

If things goes haywire, every single bastard that tries to kill him will receive a 5.56x45mm round through their body. If not, he'll kill himself and destroy his equipment so none can use it.

...

"Geez, is it that hard to contain paranoia?" He laments. Seriously, his rampant paranoia weren't _that_ rampant back home. It's probably due to his current isolation.

But the plan is currently being revised. He won't be here for long, if the rumors are to be believed, so he can't make a good enough impression to gain some supplies from their equivalent version of the black market, so he can go and safely abandon that plan.

That just leaves to going emo.

But if the other rumors are correct, he isn't alone, and he has a chance to see one of his colleagues if he's lucky.

"When does trying to live becomes this complicated?" He asks himself, while trying to sleep. He has the feeling that he's going to do something utterly retarded tomorrow.


End file.
